


Gifts that Cannot Be Held

by Rednaelo



Series: Kingdom Hearts: Love Letter [2]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Edited Post-Publishing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Multi, Pre-Canon, Riku in the midst of a bisexual crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 08:09:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17763008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rednaelo/pseuds/Rednaelo
Summary: “At least take your backpack out of the boat!” Riku yells after him.  But Sora’s not listening and Riku just hauls up Sora’s pack himself.  Kairi’s sniggering behind her hand while she finishes off the mooring hitch and tugs it tight.  “It’s the same damn ocean that’s always there,” Riku mutters to her.“Yeah but it’s nighttime,” Kairi reminds him.  “It’s different.  And it’s just the three of us here, all night.”





	Gifts that Cannot Be Held

**Author's Note:**

> Can't stop me now. Fair warning for later in the story: Riku's home situation is not very wholesome. There's some violent actions and homophobic/transphobic language used.
> 
> Peace.
> 
> -Bec

Riku leaves the door to the balcony outside his room unlocked for when he inevitably has to return.  He turns off all the lights in the house and all the lights outside of it, locks the front door, and leaves that house in the darkness without glancing backwards.  As soon as the unpaved dirt of the driveway turns into the old asphalt of the road, the anticipation catches up with him.  With a sudden laugh erupting from his chest, Riku breaks into a run. The sooner he can see them….

By the time he reaches Sora’s house, the back of Riku’s shirt is soaked through.  Might be hours into the night but it’s a long way on between their houses; Riku didn’t want to waste a second.  He knocks on the door and leans against the doorframe, drinking in slow breaths and cool starlight, chin tilted up towards the sky.    

There’s bustle of noise and warm shadows shifting across the pulled curtains at the windows.  Sora’s chipper voice bids goodbye to his mom and then he’s opening the door.  Eyes bright, smiling.

“Hey Riku!” he says as the door slides shut behind him.  Riku grins. He holds up his fist, receives the customary fistbump and then he drags the little numbskull in with an arm hooked around his neck.  “Whoa, hey!”

“C’mon, we’re gonna miss it if we don’t go!” Riku insists as he drags Sora down the walkway, only releasing him once they get to the road.  Then he breaks into a jog and leaves Sora to catch up.

“I thought the meteor shower wasn’t starting for another hour!” Sora gripes after him.  He has to catch himself mid-stumble so he doesn’t go sprawling onto the sidewalk.  But it isn’t long before he’s keeping pace with Riku, his own backpack thumping against his shoulders as they run.  “You’re not seriously gonna make us run to the boats, are you?”

“I might if you don’t hurry up!” Riku says as he grins and pulls ahead, much to Sora’s loudly-groaning chagrin.

The distance between Sora and Kairi’s house isn’t as long as the road between Sora and Riku’s, but it’s not exactly a short jog.  And Riku runs the whole way, Sora dogging his heels.  The night is as clear and cool and keeps Riku’s brow soothed while he eagerly cuts through the breezes. Already, Riku’s feet are aching for want of going bare and wading in the surf.  There’s a soft, swelling thing underneath his heart as he pictures the starlight on Kairi and Sora’s faces when they go to the island tonight.  Their smiles….

Kairi’s cottage is at the outer part of the town, nearer to the docks, the sight of it welcome as Riku rounds the last bend and spots its terra-cotta roof tiles.  He halts himself by digging his heels in the sand and Sora goes lurching ahead of him with an obnoxious squeal and he hits her front door like a ton of bricks.  The laughter just snorts out of Riku and he doubles over with his hand over his mouth, caught off guard.

“Did you _really_?” he wheezes while Sora just flops over onto Kairi’s lawn and blows a tired razzberry at him.

“Yeah, well, my backpack’s heavy!” he insists, then pants for a few breaths.  “Made it harder to stop!”

“You couldn’t just knock the normal way?” Kairi asks when she opens the door and finds Sora sprawled halfway into her garden. Riku grins at her and her nose scrunches up when she snickers at him.  “Hi, guys.” 

“Hullo, Kairi!” Sora says from the dirt, beaming up at her.  “Thank you for planting such soft flowers.”

“You better not have squished them,” Kairi says and grabs Sora’s hand to pull him back up to his feet. 

“We’ll help you plant more,” Riku says, stepping closer to assess the damage.  Though it looks like Kairi’s Spice Lilies have managed to escape the onslaught.  Sora, however….  “You’ve got so much dirt in your hair,” Riku says, brushing most of it out of Sora’s spiky locks. 

“Yeah, you’re gonna need a dip,” Kairi agrees.

“Good thing there’s ocean where we’re going,” Sora says with a smile as big as the moon.  Kairi slings her satchel over her shoulder and locks the door to her cottage.

“Let’s go, let’s go!” she says.  She takes both of their hands and giggles before dragging them down to the docks.

“Not more of this!” Sora laments.  Riku just laughs and lets her take him wherever she wants.

 

* * *

 

“I’m so excited we finally get to do this,” Kairi says as she leans against the bow of their little rowboat.  “Your mom really said it was okay for you to stay the whole night, Sora?”

“Yeah, she was cool with it!” Sora says, smiling.  “But I think that’s only because we don’t have school tomorrow.”

Riku snorts and pulls another stroke of the oars.  Of course, he’s the one who’s doing all the work of rowing them there.  But that’s fine since he volunteered to do it. And he’s the strongest so he’ll get them there faster, anyway.

“Yeah, I think Gramma would’ve had second thoughts about me going out tonight if I had any homework to worry about.  But I got it all done last night, so she was okay with it.”

“Aw, man, I have to do that when we get back,” Sora groans.  “Why’d you have to bring up homework?”

“So you don’t forget all about it and get in trouble!” Kairi says.  “Did you do yours, Riku?”  She sits at the prow and her smile is full of expectation and pride when she looks at him.

“Mmhmm.  Got it all done,” Riku says and leans into the next stroke.

“Aw, man!” Sora repeats. “You’ll let me copy yours, right, Kairi?”

“Like hell!” Kairi laughs.  “Copy Riku’s!”

“We’re not even in the same grade,” Riku says with a grin.

“Rikuuuu, give me your good grades, I hate homewoorrkk!” Sora bemoans, throwing his arms around Riku’s neck and hanging off of him.

“You’re gonna tip the boat, dumbass,” Riku says and tries to knee Sora off of him but Sora just buries his face in Riku’s neck and goes,

“Boooooooo.”

“Guess we’re watching the meteor shower from here on the water,” Kairi says with an eyebrow raised.  Now that Sora’s hanging off of him so obtusely, Riku’s stopped rowing, and they’re just drifting on the waves.

“Can you take this, please?” Riku asks, jostling Sora again by nudging at his side with one knee.

“C’mon, you big baby,” Kairi coos mockingly as she hooks her hands under Sora’s armpits and tugs him away from Riku.  “I promise I’ll help you with the assignment when we get back.”

“You’re the best,” Sora says and immediately throws his arms around Kairi’s neck and rocks the boat some more.

“I know,” Kairi agrees brightly.  “And you’ll owe me more cookies for my trouble! I’ll take my payment from your stash at home.”

“Not my cookies!” Sora says, turning back as if to escape to Riku’s side.  But now Kairi’s got her arms locked around his neck and her knees clamping his sides.  “I’ve been saving them!”  The world’s just really unfair.

Riku sighs.

“Guess I’ll have to make some more, huh?” he says. Both Kairi and Sora sparkle at him, they’re smiling so hard in the starlight.  “When we get back, I’ll do it.”

“I volunteer my oven!” Sora says.

“I’ll bring the ingredients,” Kairi adds.

With that decided, it looks like the whole weekend is theirs now, which is just fine by Riku.  Maybe he’ll see if he can crash at Sora’s place tomorrow night, then, after they return.  Since it’d just be a pain to go back to that house only to leave again the next day.  Riku’s hands tighten on the oars and he strokes hard.  If he could burn that place and never have to return, the whole world would be better for it, really.

“Oh, there it is, we’re almost there!” Kairi calls when the island is finally visible at the horizon.

“Where should we camp up?” Sora asks, now that he’s been released from the prison of Kairi’s skinny limbs. 

“The hut at the top of the tree would be the most comfortable,” Riku says.  “And the balcony would have a good view.”  It’s big enough for the three of them to fit but it won’t be too cramped. After spending the past few days considering all of their options, Riku came to the conclusion that the tree house would be the perfect choice.

“But it’d be hard to lay down and watch, wouldn’t it?” Sora says.  Riku frowns.

“You wanna see the meteors while laying down?” Kairi asks.

“I dunno, I guess that’s just how I pictured it in my head,” Sora says.  “Like…us on the beach, side by side on the blankets, watching the shooting stars with the waves rolling in….”

“And then we fall asleep and wake up half-drowned in high tide and sunburnt to a crisp,” Riku says.  He cracks a grin at the scowl that Sora gives him.

“Well, we can go somewhere else to actually sleep!” Sora says.

“When you put it like that, it actually does sound really nice,” Kairi mumbles.  “How about it, Riku?  We can watch the meteor shower by the beach and then use the hut for camp.”

It’d be fine if they just watched from the balcony, Riku thinks.  They could see it better from higher up, even.  It’d be the best view. 

Sora hasn’t stopped staring at Riku with those earnest eyes.  Kairi sits with her knees together and her hands held together in her lap, her expression carefully composed but attentive.  Riku leans and then pulls the oars again; the water sloshes around the boat and Riku caves, in the end, weak to them. 

“Sure, that sounds good to me,” he sighs.  The way Sora grins and nods and Kairi’s cheeks dimple up are worth the concession.  “But you two are beating all the sand out of the blankets on your own.”

“Deal,” Sora says.

 

* * *

 

Sora kicks off his shoes and throws his socks to the wind and bolts straight into the shallows, cackling.

“At least take your backpack out of the boat!” Riku yells after him.  But Sora’s not listening and Riku just hauls up Sora’s pack himself.  Kairi’s sniggering behind her hand while she finishes off the mooring hitch and tugs it tight.  “It’s the same damn ocean that’s always there,” Riku mutters to her.

“Yeah but it’s _nighttime_ ,” Kairi reminds him.  “It’s different.  And it’s just the three of us here, all night.”

She’s not looking at him when Riku slides his eyes over to her.  There’s a lot more to her words than just the excitement of an evening watching the stars fall. Kairi’s looking off at Sora in the water and her eyes are alight and warm.  When he finally can catch her eye, Kairi grins wider.

“Sooner we can get the stuff up to the treehouse, the sooner we can join him,” she says, like it’s supposed to be an incentive for Riku.  Like she can see right through him and knows that he – just like she does – wants to be nowhere else but running barefoot through the sea foam and laughing with Sora while they wait for the heavens to rain down.

“You owe me,” Riku informs Sora when he and Kairi have successfully made the trip up to the hut and back.  He snags Sora around the waist and jerks him backwards, throwing him easily into the water.  Sora shrieks and lands on his ass and Kairi’s just stands there giggle-snorting while she tucks her socks into the toes of her shoes.  “I row us all the way here and then you just run off to play by yourself.”

“You could’ve just left the bags in the boat!” Sora protests, now thoroughly soaked.  “We could’ve taken them up later! I wasn’t shirking!”

“Uh-huh.”

“Graaahhh!”

‘Graaahhh,’ is apparently Sora’s announcement of attack before he rises up out of the surf and throws himself bodily at Riku.  Not that Riku was anticipating anything else. He braces but Sora’s forearm rams against Riku’s kidney and they both go sprawling into the waves.  Riku spits out half a mouth of seawater and furiously rakes his hands through Sora’s hair but the little shit won’t stop laughing. He laughs and laughs and laughs himself silly until his cheeks are thoroughly ruddy and his breath is coming in broken hiccups of air, hands batting weakly at Riku’s arms until he’s just clinging rather than trying to push away.

And then a wave heaves over them both and they’re swept sideways, submerged and sandy, emerging right as Kairi runs past them, chasing the wave back into the ocean.  Her giggles are soft and pretty like little secrets under the rush of the water.  Riku knocks Sora off of him with his knee and scrapes himself back to his feet to run at Kairi and catch her up in his arms.

“No! Aaaaahhh, no, stop!” she squeals and Riku grins so hard he thinks his cheeks are gonna split.

“A virgin sacrifice to appease the wrathful sea gods!” he yells over the roar of the sea.  And has to stumble back a little to fight the next wave that rolls in and shoves at his stomach.

“Virgin?!” Kairi splutters, wriggling in his hold. 

“What, you’re not?” Riku laughs.  And then he promptly throws her into the water before she can answer or kick him in indignation.  The sound of her scream is swallowed by the water going over her head. 

And then Sora yells, “Main course virgin dinner!” and tackles Riku from behind. They both go flying forward into the blunt peak of the wave. When he breaches the surface, Riku finds Sora getting dunked under again because Kairi is shoving him down like she intends to vault over him.  Which is exactly what she does; Sora is nothing but an eruption of bubbles and Kairi slips right over him and over to Riku’s side.

“You better have brought towels,” she says before whipping her hand over the surface of the water and splashing him.  The water crests up in a sharp, clear wave and splats him right in the face.  Kairi’s technique was always the worst to reckon with. 

“Like you don’t have two changes of clothes packed,” Riku remarks and splashes her back.  Then he scoops Sora up out of the water from where he was eeling beneath the surface trying to be sneaky. 

“Haha!” Sora cries out once Riku heaves him out.

“Here, you dropped this,” Riku says and hands Sora off to Kairi, who wasn’t expecting this gift but promptly holds her arms out to accept.  She has to buckle a little so the water can carry most of his weight, but she’s grinning and so is Sora, clinging to her like she’s a skinny little palm tree.

“Sora, you’re getting heavy,” Kairi tells him.

“Stronger every day,” Sora says brightly and holds up an arm so she can see him flex his bicep.  Riku raises an eyebrow and snorts.  “You’d get that way too if you’d swordfight with us, Kai.”

“Blisters up my hands and it _sucks_ ,” Kairi says, shaking her head. 

“We’ll get you some gloves,” Riku compromises for her.  “You gotta know how to stick up for yourself if we’re not around for you.”

“What sort of trouble am I going to get in that I’ll need to know how to swordfight in order to get out of it?” Kairi asks, bewildered.  She heaves Sora up and throws him back into Riku’s arms and Sora just giggles as he’s flung around. “But, alright, sure, you get me some gloves, we can all be pirates.”

“Woohoo, pirates!” Sora calls and wriggles from Riku’s grasp to sling his arm around Kairi’s neck and pump his fist in triumph. “Scourges of the seven seas!”

“More like just the one,” Riku snorts and starts wading back towards the shore.  “C’mon you soggy sea rats.”  They follow behind him, muttering to one another about their prospective adventures on the high seas.

“Who’s the captain?” Sora asks.

“I am, obviously,” Kairi answers.

“But you can’t swordfight, Kairi, you can’t be captain.”

“That rule is dumb and I’m overturning it.”

“I’m captain,” Riku tells them without looking over his shoulder.

“What if I want to be captain?” Sora demands.

“Well then, I guess, by your rules, you have to beat me in a swordfight.”

“Already done it.”

“No, I mean a formal one.  Like.  A duel for captainship.”

“Captain-ship…. Captain of the ship….”

“We should get changed,” Kairi says, wringing the bottom of her shirt between her hands to try and get some of the water out.  Riku catches a glimpse of her pale stomach and turns away when the flash of heat overtakes his cheeks.

“I didn’t bring any other clothes other than pajamas,” Sora says.

“Well it looks like you’re getting in your jammies then,” Riku says and wanders off.  “Kairi, I’ll bring your pack down. You wanna change in the shack?”

“Oh, yeah, that works.  Thank you!”

Sora catches up with Riku in a quick little skip of steps and they walk with sandy feet towards the stairs.

“I didn’t bring any towels,” Sora mentions, sounding more than a little disappointed in himself.

“I did, don’t worry,” Riku assures him.

Out of the water and with the nighttime gusts blowing in, the two of them make a pretty hasty trip to the treehouse, just for want of being warm and dry. Riku gets the camping lanterns set up so that they’re not lost in the dark while they dig in their bags and the warmth of the marigold glow floods the room, their shadows cast in exaggerated silhouettes as he and Sora move about.

“We should really get a fire going down there,” Sora says, crouching over his backpack.

“Here, think fast,” Riku says and tosses Sora a spare towel. 

“Got it,” Sora says as he snatches it from the air and doesn’t get comically whapped in the face by terrycloth, much to Riku’s disappointment. “Thanks, Riku!”  At least his smile of triumph is beatific.  Riku turns away when his own grin emerges like a conditioned reflex.

“Yeah.  Soon as we’re done up here, I can get a bonfire set up,” Riku goes on to say.  “I brought tinder and a lighter.”

“I know where we can get some driftwood!” Sora volunteers cheerfully.  There’s a sloppy smacking sound of sodden clothing hitting the floor, followed by similar noises of more clothes piling up. Riku doesn’t think about it at all until he’s standing with his shirt off and his zipper pulled down, glancing out of the corner of his eye with his mouth open to ask where the driftwood is.

And then realizing that Sora is behind him, completely naked. A slip of his bare shoulder, a radiant bronze in the lamplight, flickers in Riku’s periphery. 

Well.  Well, it’s not like…. They grew up together so it’s not anything _new_.  It’s not.  So there’s literally no reason to even be curious about peeking. It’s just Sora.

(His skin looked so smooth and warm.)

There’s a fluttering of flannel pants being unfolded and the soft _zwip_ of Sora slipping his foot into one leg that breaks Riku’s unwarranted reverie.

He pulls his own towel over his head so he can’t see a damn thing save for his own body because that’s all he needs to be worrying about anyway.  Even so….  A memory stirs of a starry night, much like this one.  And another about the touch of warm skin in cool water.  Kisses between him and his friends….

It doesn’t help that Kairi is always looking at him with….  Riku can only think of it as _intention_ , like she sees him and has some sort of plan for him.  And then the next second she’ll just be smiling like she always does and sticking her tongue out at him.  Sora hasn’t had a plan for anything in his whole life and his attention on Riku is always at the pull of an impulse.  But those impulses have been increasing in frequency, Riku’s noticed.  Those impulses are starting to involve more excuses for Sora to slip into Riku’s space, to make their bodies meet more completely.

Maybe Sora doesn’t even realize he’s doing it.  Riku thinks on all the times just today that Sora’s literally thrown himself at him.  He thinks on how he’s been too wary of letting Sora linger so close to him, where Kairi can see them.  But she’s not here right now. 

Riku’s heart lurches behind his sternum and he closes his eyes as he pulls his hoodie on. 

“You all done?” he asks Sora and stands facing the wall with his hands in his pockets, staring at the floor, because he’s not going to turn around and stare and…do something impulsive.

“Too bad we don’t have a dryer out here,” Sora says, a lot closer than he was before.  Riku recoils a bit, finding Sora bending low to pick up Riku’s wet clothes off the floor along with his own.  His hair is still all wet and his armful is dripping everywhere as he lunges – arms outstretched and overflowing – towards the balcony.  “You should go give Kairi her stuff,” Sora suggests brightly as he begins wringing out the clothes over the railing.  “I’ll stay back and dry off the floor, get these hung up.”

Riku blinks.  He might have to shake his head a few times to make the thoughts dissipate.  Sora’s here in the moment; Riku should be too.  He shoulders Kairi’s satchel and allows himself to tweak Sora’s earlobe before walking away. 

“Don’t fall over the rail,” Riku mumbles as he walks away.

“Heheh, I’ll try not to,” Sora says.

Kairi has wandered away from where Sora and Riku left her.  Rather than just waiting on the shore, she’s gone back into the water, standing there with the water up to her hips, staring out at the stars.  Riku scans the horizon, looking to see if maybe the meteor shower has already started without him noticing.  But…it doesn’t seem so.  Not yet.

The waves push and pull and Kairi is far away, smitten with the night sky, until Riku stops at the shoreline and calls out her name.

“Sorry it took so long,” he says when Kairi wades back over to him.  He takes the towel from around his neck– the one he used to dry off – and drapes it over her shoulders.   “Here.  I…should’ve brought you a dry one.  My bad.”

Kairi smiles and lets Riku bundle her up, turning her face into the damp terrycloth and closing her eyes.

“Smells like you,” she murmurs, her words almost lost beneath the sloshing of the waves. Riku blinks at her and hopes to god that she can’t see how red his face is getting in the dark.  “And the sea.” 

“That’s…,” Riku stares blankly at Kairi and that smile finds its way to her face again.  The I-know-something-you-don’t-know grin that she gets that vexes Riku as much as it intrigues him.  “That’s good…right?”

“Yeah, I like it,” Kairi tells him.  Her hand closes softly over his and she takes her satchel from him before turning away.  “Thanks, Riku.”

The door to the shack is closed before Riku realizes that he never said anything return.  Opportunity lost (though perhaps, for the best) Riku starts meandering back inland, set on finding some stones to set up the perimeter for their firepit.  Getting work done means he’s not thinking about…whatever his stupid brain has been occupied with for the past ten minutes.

 

* * *

 

There’s so many of them.  Little slips of glistening silver thread sewn briefly though the dark, there and gone again.  Every time Riku catches sight of a falling star, he gasps a little. It took a while for Sora to stop jolting up every single time he spotted one, crying, “There, you see it?!”  Kairi did it a few times, too, fidgeting and pointing to the sky.  Which is why Riku just ended up grabbing both of their hands and holding tight.  Not to hold them back, really, but to remind them.  They’re all here, watching together.  No one’s missing a moment.

“We should make wishes,” Kairi says after they’ve been laying in pleasant silence and wonderment for a few minutes.  Her hand is so soft against Riku’s fingers.

“I wish for the three of us to be together forever,” Sora says earnestly to the stars, like they’ve already made him a promise and there will be hell to pay if they don’t follow through.  Riku snorts and flicks his thumb against the sword callous on Sora’s palm.

“You’re not supposed to say it out loud,” he tells Sora.

“I wish that when things get tough, we can always find joy,” Kairi says.  Riku only glances from the corner of his eye; she stares unblinking at the sky, praying.

There are too many things that Riku could wish for. He watches another three stars carve glimmering scratches into the deep of space. They heal as soon as their made, those wounds.  He wishes that Sora and Kairi both will keep their steady smiles and never know a moment of cruelty or pain.  If Riku has his way, they never will.  He can make that wish true by his own power, though, he decides.  He doesn’t need the stars to do it for him.

“I wish for the universe to open up to us,” he says solemnly, holding his friends’ hands tight with both of his own.  “So we can experience the best it has to offer.”

In the end, Sora and Kairi deserve whatever wonders they want.  And Riku only cares about making them happy.

Sora shifts and releases Riku’s hand.  Riku’s still in the midst of deciding whether he has a problem with this but then Sora insinuates his body up against Riku’s side, his head on Riku’s chest. And now Riku has to decide if he has a problem with _this_.  Well, he doesn’t but…should he?

Heedless, Sora’s hand reaches over and he bats a little at Kairi’s hip until she gets the message and rolls in towards Riku, coming to rest with her cheek pressed against his clavicle.  Okay.  Okay, so it’s both of them.  This is….  Well, it’s perfectly perfect.  Riku just huffs a laugh and puts his arms around his friends, holding them close, keeping them warm.

“I’m sure the sand is softer than I am,” he says.  His heart happily beats and fills his every cell with contentment. There’s a warmth that settles over his stomach: two hands folding over one another and lingering there. 

“Mmmh,” Kairi hums, disinterested in Riku’s protest, sounding sleepy.

“When we grow up,” Sora murmurs, his words a little hard for Riku to hear beneath the breath of the ocean’s ebb and flow, “we’ll go wherever we want. Together.”  Riku’s chest aches with the want of this.  It’s as if Sora’s got a direct link to Riku’s innermost yearnings and couldn’t help but say them aloud: the things that Riku’s been promising himself since he was seven years old and curled up as small as can be in his closet.

“Mmhmm,” Kairi agrees. 

Growing up is still so far away.  Quite suddenly, the prospect of waiting any longer to escape is utterly intolerable.

“I don’t want to wait that long,” Riku confesses to them both.

There’s a place out there for the three of them.  Somewhere permanent.  A new world.  A place where ‘home’ just means wherever Kairi and Sora are and not where that shitty _house_ is, that place where Riku has to tiptoe and sneak and stay silent. 

Riku wants a home that’s laughter and light.  And he aches with the want of it so fiercely that his next inhale is sharp enough to jostle Sora’s head on his chest.

“We should just go,” Riku whispers.  “Get a better boat and pack it up and just leave.”

“For real?” Sora asks.  His hand twitches over Riku’s stomach and Kairi’s hand tightens on top of it.  “But what about school?  And the other guys?  What about our par—”

“Doesn’t matter,” Riku cuts him off.

“Should wait until summer vacation,” Kairi suggests quietly.  Riku clenches his teeth together and Kairi’s breath tickles his neck a little when she sighs.  “Can’t just pack up and leave, Riku, you know that.  Break’s only a few months away.  Let’s make a plan.  And we’ll go then.”

“Yeah,” Sora agrees.  “We can’t just go now; we gotta make more cookies first, remember?”  His giggling soaks into Riku’s body and leeches all of the sparking frustration out of him.  Kairi chuckles too and Riku lets his breath soften in his lungs, nestling his head back into the blanket while their laughter soothes him. 

“Where are we gonna go, Riku?” Kairi ends up asking him a few moments later.  Riku catches the tail of another falling star and rubs at Kairi’s back in little circles.

“Anywhere but here,” is all he says.  And that’s really enough for now, since they aren’t going anywhere at the moment.  He’ll figure it out later, Riku decides.  Sora’s stomach makes a really obvious _squorlching_ noise and he turns his face into Riku’s armpit and shakes with giggles.

“What in the world,” Kairi sniggers and Riku sputters against the stop of her head, laughing.

“Did, uh,” Sora says, lifting himself up a little to look at the both of them, “did either of you bring food?”

“I’m honestly really surprised that _you_ didn’t,” Riku says.

“Well, I did,” Sora says.  “Enough for all of us.  But, you know…the more, the merrier, right?”

“That’s supposed to be about having company, not side dishes,” Kairi says.  Riku can’t see her face because her head is tucked under his chin but Sora’s grinning all dopey-sheepish and Riku gets the feeling that Kairi’s probably smiling that way she does when she’s being chiding but also amused.

“I’m hungry enough to eat the company,” Sora says in all seriousness.  And then leans in and gnaws on Riku’s chin.

“Get off me, you freak,” Riku laughs.  He tries to evade Sora’s teeth, but given how Riku doesn’t want to let go of either of them to attempt a proper escape, he’s only marginally successful.  Kairi snorts when she giggles. 

“We should get our food and eat by the fire,” she suggests.  And even though Riku and Sora agree, no one makes to leave from their cuddled sprawl on the blanket.  The meteor shower is still going, Riku reasons in his own thoughts.  It makes sense that they just stay here and just enjoy it for as long as they possibly can.

On his right side, Sora adjusts his spot until Riku can feel clammy toes touching his ankle and on his left, Kairi turns her head back and forth, rubbing the tip of her nose against Riku’s chest. They’re gonna fall asleep here, if they’re not careful.  Wake up waterlogged and scorched red in the sunlight, just like Riku said they would. 

Riku takes a deep breath and holds the two people in the world that he loves and wishes as hard as he can that he doesn’t ever have to leave this spot.

 

* * *

 

That house is the most run down in the whole village.  At the northern limits, closest to the runoff river and ugly to look at: a shabby bungalow on stilts with the paint cracked and overgrown palms suffocating all the light off of it. In the winter, the cold goes straight through the worn wooden walls and in the summer, Riku boils alive in his own bedroom every night.

And that fucker’s truck is parked out front.

Riku stands at the edge of the yard with his backpack slung over one shoulder and his hands clenched in his hoodie pocket.  It’s a good thing he left the balcony unlocked; chancing the front door would be a stupid gamble.

It’s a familiar journey, scaling up the curling palm in the back – the one he nailed a couple of footholds to – and then jumping onto the back balcony.  The railing creaks something fearful when Riku leans his weight on it.  Riku wraps his hand around the handle and pulls. The door doesn’t budge.

A cold weight plummets into Riku’s stomach and he jostles the handle again, fruitlessly.  This….  No, he _knows_ he left it unlocked.  He even checked it before he left his room, twice just to be sure.  Already a panicked theory on what has happened is forming in Riku’s thoughts, turning his whole body hot with dread.

“Come on,” he urges, yanks again.  There’s a sharp tapping on the glass and Riku’s head snaps up. 

On the other side is that bastard, holding an open beer bottle in one hand and looking like a sleazebag in his dirty jeans and sweatstained t-shirt.

“Open the door,” Riku says, his hand gripping hard at the strap of his backpack.

The bastard just stands there and rolls his eyes before flicking the door lock and stepping back. 

“Get the fuck out of my room,” Riku says after wrenching the door open.

“Not your room, it’s my house,” the asshole says as he wanders lazily back towards the hallway.  “You got five minutes and then I want you out.”

“What—”

“I’ve got company over and I don’t want to think about you being in the next room.  So get your shit then get out.”

“I just _got_ here!” Riku shouts.  Not that he even wanted to come here in the first place or linger a moment longer than he had to. But he’s got to push back because if he ever stops fighting then it’d be like showing his belly, like saying he was fine with just obeying whatever the asshole wanted.

“Don’t give a shit,” he says.

“What, you couldn’t take your _company_ back to her place?  Probably because you paid for her. Pathetic.”

The beer bottle shatters against the balcony door and leaves a spiderweb of cracks in the glass; the stale and putrid ferment of the beer soaks into the rug on the floor.

“Thirty seconds,” the fucker growls.  “You’re not gone by then, I’m dragging you out by your sissy haircut and throwing you in the river.”

“I’ll break your fingers before you can even try,” Riku snarls right back.  Then he kicks the bedroom door shut and snaps all the bolts on it closed just before the impact.  The door rattles on its hinges, the bastard pounding and roaring against it, calling Riku a piece of shit worthless son among all the other insults that Riku’s heard before. 

Riku pulls his duffel bag out of the closet and quickly fills it up with whatever he can find, whatever looks like he might need.  He grabs the metal baseball bat last and uses it to smash the lock on the balcony before he escapes. 

His room is going to smell like beer for god knows how long.

Sora is at the end of the dirt driveway and Riku’s heart seizes when he catches sight of him.

“The hell are you doing here?” he shouts, terrified, and catches Sora’s hands in his own before running the hell away from that house, that disgusting place.

“Ow, ow, Riku, stop!” Sora cries.  “Slow down!”

“I told you just to wait for me at your place!” Riku yells at him when they’re far enough away into the woods that the fucker won’t bother chasing them in that deep.  Riku glances back over his shoulder.  He doesn’t _think_ he’d bother going in this far….  It’s quiet for a moment; Riku strains his ears to listen but his heart is thundering too wildly in his chest.

“Riku, let go, you’re hurting me,” Sora says softly, trying to pull his hands away from Riku’s crushing grip.  Riku practically leaps back from Sora, staring in terror as Sora massages at his wrists and looks to Riku with dismay.

He wasn’t even thinking.  The only thing that mattered was getting Sora away from there.  As fast as possible, by any means necessary.  And Riku hurt him.

Riku’s mouth fills with heavy nothingness and he swallows it all back, fingernails digging into his palms as he glares down at the leaf-covered ground. The silence spreads out around him and points inward, a spotlight shining down.  Every mistake Riku hasn’t answered for feels like it’s coming to the surface but Riku still doesn’t know how to explain himself.  Before he can even try, Sora just steps right into Riku’s space.

“Come on,” he coaxes and gently takes Riku’s hands in both of his own.  There are reddish chafe-welts around Sora’s wrists and Riku swallows hard again.  “Let’s go home.  Kairi’s already there and we gotta make cookies.”

There’s too much inside of Riku.  Anger and fear and frustration and uselessness…. Sora doesn’t let him go and just tugs on his hands, insistent and careful.  Riku has left crying behind him because it’s utterly useless and doesn’t solve anything.  Even so, his eyes ache like there might be rocks in his skull.

He can be better than that, better than the kind of person who hurts his friend because of something as useless as _fear_.  Because the alternative is ending up like that bastard.  Riku won’t allow it. 

He breathes in deep and closes his fingers around Sora’s hand, squeezing once before he lets go.

“Don’t scare me like that,” he ends up saying as he walks past Sora, adjusting his duffel bag on his back.  “You know better than to go near there.”

“Just wanted to walk with you, is all,” Sora says.  The bone-deep aches that have lingered begin melt away, hearing Sora’s smile in his words.  “You’re spending the night at my place, right?  My room’s super messy but I’ll clean it up a little if it bugs you.”

Riku scoffs and reaches to ruffle Sora’s hair when they’re walking alongside one another again. 

“Doesn’t matter to me,” he says.

Sora lapses into a cheerful and mostly one-sided conversation about whatever comes to mind and Riku invests only the most cursory responses, glancing down at the welts on Sora’s wrists.  They’re fading out, slowly.  Riku neglected to apologize for it.  But he knows Sora would’ve forgiven him in an instant.  Whether or not Riku deserves to be forgiven for hurting one of the people he loves…. 

He’s got to be better. 

Riku clenches his hand in his hoodie pocket and keeps his smile up for Sora, tries to let his blood cool in his veins.  He thinks with every step further away from that place that the rest of the universe is where he can be safe.  Anywhere with his friends.  Anywhere with Kairi and Sora, as long as they’re happy.

Riku can’t wait to take them all far, far away from here.

Kairi is waiting for them outside Sora’s house, sitting on the front step with a book in her hands.  But as soon as Sora brightly calls out her name, Kairi looks up from her reading and smiles.  Her eyes alight on Riku and he suddenly feels like he can’t look at her.  So when she approaches, he glances offside instead and pastes on a smile that he thinks will look like the one he wears all the time.  He pulls the duffel bag off his back and lets it hang from his hand instead of reaching out to hug her.

“Sorry about the holdup,” Riku says to the house’s front window with its pale blue curtains drawn.  He feels like he’s already made this apology to her; the more he makes it, the less she’s going to trust him.

“It’s alright,” Kairi says.  Her voice is too tender, too full of forgiveness and understanding. It makes the deep, weak parts of Riku – the parts that he wants to hide and destroy – engorge sickeningly inside of his chest, threatening to rupture out in a way that's sure to shame him further.

Kairi takes Riku’s bag from him, drops it off on the steps, and then turns right back and presses herself into his arms.  Almost instantly, Sora has glued himself to Riku’s back, hands reaching all the way around to hold Kairi’s shoulders.  A startled laugh is squeezed out of Riku and it’s enough to fool the pathetic thing inside him into retreating again.  Riku wraps his arms tight around Kairi and tilts his head back until he can bump his head against Sora’s.

They can’t smother out the twist of fear that’s always lingered in Riku’s heart.  But they fill him up with so much light that he can at least forget about it when they’re all here, together.


End file.
